Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich waded into the debate in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting Wednesday, blaming the murders of 20 children and seven adults on the absence of God in public life.

"When you have an anti-religious, secular bureaucracy and secular judiciary, seeking to drive God out of public life, something fills the vacuum," Gingrich said, speaking with Brian Thomas of 55KRC in Cincinnati.

He then blamed influences on young peoples' lives, including violent imagery in video games and movies.

"I don't know that going from communion to playing war games in which you practice killing people is necessarily an improvement," he said.

"Let's have a genuine national commission, but not just on guns, which is what the left wants to do. Let's look at the totality of what affects young Americans today and let's ask a question about why have we become a society in which so many people have no faith in the future, no belief in themselves, and in which they don't see their fellow Americans as human beings, but they just see them as objects."

Gingrich follows in the footsteps of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who said the shooting in Newtown happened because we "removed God from our schools," and televangelist James Dobson who said gay marriage and abortion were at fault.

Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich speaks at a Faith and Freedom Coalition presidential forum on March 31, 2012 in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. UPI/Brian KerseyMourners react after the funeral 6-year-old James Mattioli at Saint Rose of Lima Church in Newtown, Connecticut following a shooting four days before that left 26 people dead including 20 children on December 18, 2012. A gunman opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School early Friday morning. The gunman 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed himself following the shooting rampage inside the school. UPI/John Angelillo

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